Trading the Nasdaq-100 (NQ) Futures

[Dogpile 10]

for much of the last few weeks, NQ will often set up one of my long or shorts and then just go dead off of the set-up. you don't necessarily lose money, it just corrects sideways rather than shooting the other way. if my set-ups aren't working with immediate and dramatic profits, then that is a lousy market

 

today did have 1 nice morning swing and then ended up a very weak 12 point narrow range day. I would like to see NQ go back to the 22-25 point range days with multiple 10+ point intraday swings. volume was up a bit today so I am anticipating some better swings tomorrow and beyond.

 

NQ is made up of choppy tech stocks that usually like to rinse daily swing traders out. IBD defines a 'distribution day' for nasdaq as a -0.80% day.. Tradestation shows that there have been 38 days this year where NQ has traded -0.80% vs previous days closing price (not distribution days with price closing that low, just trading down that far intraday).. this is vs ~130 trading sessions. So this kind of 'distribution day attempt' has happened on about 29% of all sessions, a significant number. We have now gone 8 sessions without a 'distribution day attempt' -- this is unusual lack of selling. maybe its a sign of extreme strength. but the odds at this point say we are overdue for at least a little 2-way action in the short-run. I don't need big down days to make good money -- just asking for a little bit of 2-way trading.

[Blu-Ray 10]

NQ has not had a lot of good set-ups lately - probably due to lack of good volume. hopefully, it picks up soon.

 

I like trading NQ futures in the morning session (generally counter-trend) and YM futures in the afternoon (with the trend).

 

here is what I have been seeing lately:

 

see NQ Structure and NQ Structure Part 2 Videos

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OYnIZ6mUUE

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5Zj4R4bY4

 

 

Good videos there Dogpile, But I would recommend getting either camstudio or camtasia, as you'll get better a visual of the screen.

 

Cheers

 

Blu-Ray

[walterw 10]

Good videos there Dogpile, But I would recommend getting either camstudio or camtasia, as you'll get better a visual of the screen.

 

Cheers

 

Blu-Ray

 

and then you can also upload them here on the video section and they will stay secure on this server....

[Dogpile 10]

Just a structural review of NQ for 2-Day period ended Tuesday July 10, 2007.

 

Note the core concepts:

 

trades to previous days POC

ABC pattern as a continuation pattern

using trade location (market profile POC) to aid your trading decisions

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_3waY3iv-s

 

 

 

(I realize Camtasia is better for videos but I am not looking at doing a ton of professional videos -- just looking to get some discussion going on NQ -- my apologies if you can't see it exactly but I am just talking structure here, not presice trade set-ups -- so the indicator settings are not really what is important -- just the combination of technical pattern and a little market profile to add some trade location filtering).

[Blu-Ray 10]

 

(I realize Camtasia is better for videos but I am not looking at doing a ton of professional videos -- just looking to get some discussion going on NQ -- my apologies if you can't see it exactly but I am just talking structure here, not presice trade set-ups -- so the indicator settings are not really what is important -- just the combination of technical pattern and a little market profile to add some trade location filtering).

 

No problem Dogpile,

 

Thanks for the videos, please keep them coming, I wasn't really interested in indicator settings or precise set-ups, it was just a thought that it would be easier using camtasia or camstudio.

 

Anyway thanks again

 

Blu-Ray

[Dogpile 10]

NQ essentially sucked and I didn't make a single NQ trade today. I had a bullish bias coming in due to the 'pinball buy' daily set-up (a Rashke 'Street Smarts' daily bias) but the 15-min chart didn't co-operate for a clean set-up. one more push down in the morning would have set-up a buy for me but it wasn't to be. here is the quick video I posted yesterday regarding the 'pinball' set-up for today:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8rzP7eqgQk

 

Note that while I couldn't find a good 15-min set-up, the market did trade back to previous days POC at 2002.75 -- a common tendency. This gave nice directional bias for the morning session -- in fact it hunted down previous days POC almost to the tick (yet again) before forming a choppy coil. Note how todays early-afternoon choppy coil did not compress into a triangle type of pattern -- creating a difficult pattern to read. It did do a 'ABC' down move before rocketing higher late in the day. But I was busy trading YM.

 

The late push up in price is nice because the market will likely be opening 'out of balance' (ABOVE todays POC). This makes for better trading tomorrow -- hopefully.